Monthly Archives: March 2009

I just read that NetApp (a company that makes file servers that I have used and administrated for over 10 years, and really like) is yanking their current Graphic User Interface (GUI, which is web-based, and therefore usable on a wide variety of platforms), and replacing it with a “more modern interface”: a Windows application. This would normally be the point where you’d be expecting me to rail on Windows, but I’m not going to this time. The point here could have been made if they’d picked MacOS or something else: in going with a single platform (yes, ok, given the corporate norm, a platform representing the vast majority of NetApp admins), they went from allowing everyone to play, to making it inconvenient at best for people like me to use the interface.

Of course, the *real* point here is that I don’t use GUIs (assuming an alternative), so I will continue to administrate my filer the old-fashioned way, via a command line and config files, annoyed at NetApp’s decision, but unaffected by it.

I just learned my hearing cuts out at about 14kHz, thanks to this page. As a musician, someone who has been to his share of concerts and a person over 25, I guess this is ok:

It’s fairly common for people who are over 25 years of age to not be able to hear above 15Hz

and

Musicians have a much higher risk of hearing loss that most people do

I’ve known my ability to hear high-frequency pitches has been diminishing, as even slightly-misbehaving electronics used to drive me crazy, but don’t anymore: in university, I worked in a department that had a slidemaker that when it was turned on, emitted a high-frequency sound that most people couldn’t hear, but I would have to leave the room or suffer a near-instant head-ache.

One of the joys of getting older, I guess, but as a muscian (and music lover) I’m grateful that I can still hear a normal range of tones.